The present invention relates generally to foot activated musical drum impacting devices and more particularly to devices used in conjunction with a musical drum which translates foot motion into motion of a mallet to impact the surface of a drum.
Standard foot activated musical drum pedal devices are known in the prior art to include generally a base, foot pedal and, mallet head mechanically linked together to translate foot motion into a drum beating activity. These devices are generally used in conjunction with a large musical bass drum. The pedal device generally is fixed to a bottom portion of the bass drum rim. The musician generally sits back and above the pedal device. The device is activated by the musician depressing the foot pedal which causes the mallet head to impact a surface of the bass drum.
The speed of the mallet head impacting the drum head defines, in part, the quality of the music produced by the drum. The faster the mallet strikes the drum, the louder and crisper will be the resounding beat.
Generally, the bass drum is used to define the time, tempo or meter in music. The foot pedal is rhythmically depressed by the musician according to the tempo of the music played.
Present devices directly link a lever arm attached to a crossarm supported by a pair of uprights generally above the toe end of a foot pedal. The linkage is usually a flexible member such as nylon cordage. In some prior art models, the flexible member is attached to the rear portion of a curved lever arm with upward pulley grooves. The flexible member is wrapped through the pulley grooves over the forward end of the lever arm, and then downward to attach directly to the toe end of the foot pedal. More expensive models replace the lever arm with a sprocket wheel and employ a chain drive as the flexible member. The chain drive is attached to a rearward portion of the sprocket wheel, arranged over the wheel to be attached directly to the toe end of the foot pedal.
For both devices, the direct coupling of the flexible member to the toe end of the foot pedal fails to provide a satisfactory mechanical advantage whereby the motion of the foot pedal can be amplified to cause the mallet head to strike the drum surface faster.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide an improved foot activated musical drum impacting device by providing a means to magnify the conversion of the foot motion of the drummer, thereby magnifying the speed of the mallet as the mallet strikes the drum.
It is also an object of the present invention to use as much as possible the present components of standard foot activated musical drum pedal devices.
It is also an object of the present invention to modify the toe end of the foot pedal of a standard foot activated musical drum pedal to incorporate a pulley wheel assembly and to mechanically link the standard foot activated device in such a way as to magnify the motion of the foot pedal into mallet head speed.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the follwing specification and are accomplished by means hereafter described and claimed, the invention being measured by the appended claims and not by the details of the specification.